Photos on flickr

After a hot and humid June, we roll into July–Georgia’s hottest month. To beat the heat, we’ll ride bright; we’ll ride at night: on July 31st we’ll have another night-ride to take advantage of the wonderfully cool evenings. Our casual, evening stroll through Athens will start at City Hall at 9:00PM! As always, when we ride at night, we light it up! The more lights the better! Blinkies, high beams, flashlights, wheel lights, glowsticks–TRON cosplay!? All encouraged!* If you don’t have lights, send us a note at administrator@bikeathens.com and we’ll get you some, so no excuses!

Mark your calendars, we have two new social ride opportunities to announce! First, we’ve arranged for our 2nd Summer Series Ride! June 24th, we’ll be heading over to Hendershot’s for bike Happy Hour (5:00-7:00PM).

We’ll ride over from the BRP Shop a little before 5–y’all are welcome to join us for the short cruise over to the Hendershot’s patio. While this is the second Summer Series to land on a Wednesday, the days will change! The Happy Hours will not exclusively on Wednesdays! The Happy Hour series is partly intended to bring business to local bars and restaurants on their less-busy nights (monday-wednesday), and partly to increase the visibility of people using their bikes to contribute to the local economy around Prince avenue and downtown, so if y’all have sugggestions for bars/restaurants, throw them our way!

Of course, we also have our Monthly Group Ride Friday, June 26th! This month, we going on a nice 5.4 mi. circuit through UGA Campus; should be lovely and quiet this time of year. As usual, we’ll meet up at City Hall, and roll out at 6:00pm! (It will probably be hot, so we do recommend bringing some water).

BikeAthens presents the Summer Series in Celebration of the best time for riding in town

To celebrate the greatest season to live and ride in Athens, Bike Athens is excited to present a summer series of happy hours, bike-in movies, group rides, etc., culminating in a bike-camping trip in August! So grease up your chains because summer is here, and summer was made for biking

Our first Wednesday Happy Hour of the summer will be at Normal Bar this coming Wednesday, the 27th. If you want to ride over in a group, we’ll be leaving from the Tracy St. Warehouses around 5. Otherwise, just meet us there or whatever.

The happy hour series is partly intended to bring business to local bars and restaurants on their less-busy nights (Monday-Wednesday), and partly to increase the visibility of cyclists contributing to the local economy around Prince avenue and downtown, so if y’all have suggestions for bars/restaurants, throw them our way!

We’ve created a Facebook event page for the Summer Series so you can stay up-to-date on the latest events!!

This weekend, we’ll be celebrating Twilight, and part of that celebration is our monthly group ride!! Whether you are racing in the Criterium, or getting back on the bike for the first time in years, our group ride is for you! On Friday the 24th, we’ll meet at 6:00pm at City Hall before heading out on a lovely tour of Athens. It’s one of our favorite routes, and we’ve been saving it for a special occasion. The casual 8 mile loop will take us down Prince, through 5 Points, past Sanford Stadium, into Dudely Park, and along the Greenway! As always, we will finish at Little Kings for some well-earned recovery beverages! See y’all there!

As you may have heard, we are shifting (pun intended) the dates of our Group Rides! Moving forward, they will now be the LAST Friday of the month! As always, the rides will start at 6:00PM from City Hall, and will wind through Athens for 5-9 miles before ending at Little Kings. We ride slow and easy; no one get left behind! So mark your calendar’s! To establish the new date, we are having a 2nd group ride March 27th! Whoo!!

With longer days and warmer weather (we hope) right around the corner, BikeAthens is proud to announce a special event: March 6th Group Ride & Bike Lights GiveAway, sponsored by Michael Ruppersburg, Attorney at Law!

The lengthening days do not mean we can take visibility for granted, which is why we’ve decided to host our first group ride of the year March 6th. More amazingly, local attorney Michael Ruppersburg contacted us to support another bike light giveaway.

Here’s how it will work: as usual we’ll meet at City Hall to roll out at 6:00PM. We’ll cruise down Boulevard, carve past ARMC, swing up through the Cobham neighborhood and finish at Little Kings at about 7:00PM, It is a relaxed well-lit route—a perfect introduction to our Group Rides. Once we arrive at Little Kings, we’ll install free bike lights until 8:00PM, or until we run out of lights, whichever comes first!

It’s that time of year again–time to take a Day On! In honor of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service, BikeAthens Bike Recycling Program will be hosting volunteers this coming Monday from 10:00am–1:00pm! Join us as we re-organize after the Holiday Bikes 4 Kids Drive!! RSVPs appreciated, but not required: just drop us a line at volunteermanager@bikeathens.com

(Note: while we are not one of the 6 “official” Athens MLK projects sites, all volunteers are still invited to the MLK Day of Service breakfast, 9:00am at Thomas Lay Park. Free t-shirts for the first 300 volunteers)

For the second year, we’ll be “riding” in the Wild Rumpus Parade!! 7:30PM on Halloween–Friday, the 31st, the spokiest day of the year–we’re having a costume ride that will end in time to join the Wild Rumpus!! While we rode in the parade last year, the terrain and crowds meant we spent a lot of time walking our bikes; as a result, we may decide to lock our bikes and simply walk in the parade, for a multi-modal Halloween!

As usual, we’ll start from City Hall (7:30PM), then loop through well-lit neighborhoods before finishing at the Wild Rumpus staging area. An easy 5.24 miles in total. It will be getting dark early, so load your bike with lights. If you need lights, shoot us a line and we can provide them for you! What fun! We can wait to…scare…y’all there!

On the first Friday of October–Biketober, BikeAthens is riding straight to the moon (tree)! Planted in 1976 after orbiting the moon on Apollo 14 in 1971, the loblolly Pine stretches up toward la luna from the grounds of the ACC Planning Department. As usual, we’ll start our ride at 6:00PM at City Hall. We will then ride over to pay homage to the Moon Tree before continuing on an easy, breezy 5.39 mile loop through the lovely Boulevard, Normaltown, and Cobbham Neighborhoods before finishing at Little Kings. Please join us for what will be a fun, unique ride through Athens!

Beautiful tour of the Boulevard, Normaltown, and Cobbham neighborhoods

BikeAthens is going riding!! That’s right–after 20 years of advocating for transportation choices, we’re taking the weekend off, and heading out on a leisurely Ride That Owns Itself. You are cordially invited to join us!

In honor of Athens unique history, the Ride that Owns Itself will wind its way through the most beautiful roads in all of Georgia. We have two fully supported routes–44 and 66 miles–that tour the bucolic countryside north of Athens. Even better, we’ll be breaking bread together afterward at the downtown Athens Creature Comforts Brewery, where your ride registration includes a private brewery tour, beer samples, and a specialty glass! (Those under 21 ride for free. Kids under 18 can ride with a paying adult.) While dinner is not included in the registration price, we will have good, cheap food from a local vendor available on-site.

After the tour, we’ll all recover together at the Creature Comforts brewery. Friends and family who may not be able to make the ride can register for just the brewery tour. All the event profits go to support BikeAthens and your favorite BikeAthens programs.

Ride registration includes the fully supported ride, a BikeAthens Membership, and the free private Creature Comforts Tour and glass. The first 60 registrants will also receive a free BikeAthens Get Noticed t-shirt! Sweet!!!

The ride will start at Creature Comforts beautiful downtown location. Car parking will NOT be available on site. You may pick up your ride packet the night before.

Here at BikeAthens, we love cycling for the way it builds community. As a result, we are doing something different with our ride. Rather than having a group start, we are aiming for a group finish. Our check-in / registration table will be open from 10:00AM – 4:00; you and your group may hit the road whenever you’d like, with the goal that we’ll all finish around the same time.

Suggested start times: 12:00PM for the 66 miler. 2:00PM for the 44 miler